Halloween Bats and Boos Quilt along

Quilt Along!

 I love Halloween and any time I see Halloween fabric or a Halloween pattern I want it. I don't always finish it or use the fabric, but I always want it. I saw a series of videos by the Fat Quarter Shop that is their Bats and Boos Quilt along. They also had a cross stitch pattern made for the design. Both were free to download and very easy to follow patterns. 

I made the wall hanging with a few additions. I added sashing between the blocks and an extra corner block on the middle block. I plan to add a border of the same fabric I used for my bat wings. I just need to make the backing and I can prep it to quilt. It's small enough I think I can get that done quickly.  I have a photo of the current progress but I plan on taking a better one later.

Bad lighting but the background is not helping.

Future Plans...

Next weekend I have another craft show in Jackson Square, Oak Ridge, TN. I haven't made new things for the show because I still have enough stuff from where I prepped before. I have finally sold my Harry Potter quilt so I will have to bring another showcase quilt to hang up. I did go today and buy myself a new tent.

I had been borrowing a tent from my cousin and hers is hard to set up and half broken. I got a good deal on one from Academy Sports. I got a purple tent because I love the color purple. I was trying to decide to go with green or purple since the business name is Green Tea quilts. Purple won out in the end. I may remake my sign later, depending on how this goes. I do sometimes feel like I'm doing a lot of work for no extra return but I also have enjoyed being at the shows. No one said having a side hustle was going to be easy. 

Tea Time!

The bear logo is cute!

I stopped at Hey Bear Cafe on my way home from getting my tent. It's been over a year since I've been there due to covid and not going to that area as much. It's close to where I work but not my house. I've been working from home for a year and a half now so I don't have an excuse to go that way. The cafe is a boba tea shop that sells snacks. 

They have a lovely park on their property that they have food trucks and bands set up regularly. I didn't hang around today for the band because I didn't have my hand stitching project with me. I did get a lovely Jasmine Milk Tea with boba and custard. I love that you can adjust the ice amount and tea sweetness to your taste also. Jasmine Tea is also my favorite tea,

Knit in Public day June 13th

I do not knit. I have tried and I suck at it. I do cross-stitch and small had stitching projects. I normally go to Sit N Stitch with my local quilt shop and work on a Harry Potter SYOA cross stitch. Recently on Knit in Public Day, I decided to join the shop in their social distance gathering. It was nice and fun. I got to talk to people I've not seen in a long time. Meet new people. There was a food truck with yummy food and drinks. I don't know how much progress I really got on my cross stitching but it was relaxing. I know a few other people in other locations who do knit and did knit in public.

I got tea and mini quiches from the food truck. I also got a mango smoothie cause I couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted to drink. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the food truck right now. I can see myself coming back later to add them.

The shop is going to throw another day similar to this in Jackson Square on July 24th. She's calling it Crafters Night Out. The Crazy Cuban Food Truck will be there and we can just sit outside and enjoy a summer evening ran or shine. Thanks to covered walkways we can still go out. I just hope it's not 100 degrees outside.

2020 Projects!

It's already March and I've not posted anything on what I've been working on. I've been distracted and then at the end of January and the first of February I had a friend visit from out of town. I didn't get anything done while he was here.  So I've had several small projects I finished for February and January.

January I did the first Saturday fiber Review for Fiberology Labs. I didn't have much extra to show for it. I did have the Christmas Tree Table Runner I showed in my last post. I also finished my Winter 2019 cross stitch along with Stitchonomy. It came out so pretty. I'm going to leave it in the wooden frame to hang it. I have started another cross stitch along with her group. It's called Homely Houseplants. She ended that one recently I just have to finish the last few plants on mine. She has a free sign up for her next stitch along Colorful Critters. You have until April 15th to sign up for the free patterns.

February for the Fiber review we got a pattern for a heart coster. I've finished the coster but haven't taken a photo of it yet. It was a small fast project. I'm going to make more for presents later with different fabrics. It's pretty easy all you need is a few charm squares. I will have a photo of the finished one with March's fiber review meeting.

I started a temperature quilt for my father. One of the lady's that meet at our local quilt shop/yarn shop has been doing a temperature scarf as part of The National Park Tempestry Project. This got me researching different types of temperature blankets etc. I don't knit or crochet. I have attempted it in the past and it is just not one of my talents. I do, however, quilt a lot. So I thought I could do one as a present.

January and February temperature quilt for 1954 WIP

My father's birth year was chosen because I haven't done anything specifically for him yet. I thought he would like this type of quilt the most. I did research on the daily highs and lows for the entire year. I had taken the range and assigned fabric colors to equal the temperatures in 5-degree increments. The lower two ranges are in 10-degree increments because of not having data reflecting certain ranges. I cut brown squares to mark where the months change and made 365 half-square triangle blocks. I have been a bit slower on this project then I hoped I would be and only have 5 rows together giving us a snapshot of the first two months of the year.

January Block

February block

Another project I am working on has been a Murder Mystery Quilt along. They are dropping a block a month with a bit of a story. When you post a picture of your block you get a clue to help you figure out the mystery. I've enjoyed this one so far. Seeing everyone else's blocks posted on Instagram has been fun.

This month for tea I'm going to spotlight a tea room I went to in Chattanooga recently. One of the places my friend wanted to go to was Two Ten Jacks in Chattanooga for Ramen. Since it's almost a two-hour drive for us, we decided to do a day trip and hit a few places. We stopped at Chattanooga Mercantile and spent several hours wandering through the store. It was lots of fun. In the building, there is a tea room called Mammie Carlotta's tucked in the back. We stopped for a snack and some tea for a bit before wandering around the shop more.

December Recap

I forgot to take photos of the 9 patch potholders.

I had a busy month of making for Christmas. First Saturday's Fiber Review at the Fiberology lab I was able to show off my candy block potholder and mug rug, as well as a square Christmas potholder I had made. I had a pack of mini charms that was from a Christmas collection a few years ago. I don't even remember how I got the pack now, but I decided it was the best time to use them up. I made a 9 patch block for the front and a pocket for the back. By the end of the month, I had made 15 potholders total with the candy blocks and the Christmas 9 patches. I gave them out to family, friends, and co-workers for Christmas. I also gave away two table toppers I had made and a small quilt. Tis the season for giving and I enjoyed sharing my hard work.

I also worked a bit on a snowflake cross stitch along from Stitchonomy. I admit I haven't' finished that one, but I did have fun while I could work on it. I also still have the pattern to work on later. Cross stitching is one of my hobby's I don't do very often.

Another project I started working on was a block in a block quilt. It's not got a name yet. I've run out of my background fabric, so I'm waiting to get some more before I take a photo. It's got a bright turquoise solid fabric I got from Joann's as my background. Last time I went on black Friday the fabric line it came from was on sale, but they didn't have any of that color left. Once I finish it, I plan on writing a pattern for it. I think it came out beautifully, but I may be biased since I created it.

Speaking of Black Friday, I mostly hit fabric stores. I got some solids on sale at Joann's and my local quilt shop had a progressive sale going on. I picked up a panel and two accent fabrics from the same line. I also stopped at Ulta and picked up a few beauty steals. Most of those went into Christmas presents for the family. I only kept the blush and the mascara from the picture to the right.

Overall the month was fun and busy. I got to spend lots of quality time with the family and give several of them handcrafted goodies.

I'm going to break from my tea routine for this post and bring out the Spirits. My cousin was in town and we toured some distilleries in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. I picked up some flavored moonshine and a spiced Christmas wine. I had the wine on Christmas day with my cousin and her family. The moonshine came from two distilleries. From Ole Smokey in the Island area of Pigeon Forge, I picked up a Chocolate Chili moonshine. It was part of the last batch, so they didn't have any open for tasting anymore. From Tennessee Legend Distillery I got a Fiery Mango Margarita Moonshine. It's a nice spicy-sweet blend that is worth drinking as shots. The wine was from Mountain Valley Winery. It's a limited edition Winterfest red. The winery is part of a wine trail, that I suggest visiting if you get a chance. When you visit all the wineries, you get a free glass.

October projects done

So I'm eternally writing about what I did last month or something like that because sometimes my ADHD interferes with getting everything documented. I know I get a few views but I do treat this blog as more of a timeline for the starting and finishing of projects.

October wasn't my busiest month but I did have a lot to do. My cousin always throws a Halloween party and I always enjoy making something Halloween inspired. I decorated my office with my Halloween Bunting I made last year and a small pumpkin table topper/wall hanging.

I also started two cross-stitch along's. The first one by Cunning Cross Stitch is a Harry Potter Themed project that they call a stitch your own adventure. I figured this would be a good hand stitch project to do since they give us almost two months between pattern releases. The second was a shorter more pattern of the day stitch along by Stitchonomy based on the Drawlloween prompts for October. Both stitch along's are on facebook and I found the prompts and Stitchonomy's daily patterns on Instagram. She does sell the pattern as a whole in her pattern club on patreon. I do encourage you to check her out because her work is fantastic. I started that one about mid-October so I have the most of it done. Just some decorations outside my frame to finish and cleaning. She also has a winter stitch along coming up you can sign up for.

The other big project I did was a Halloween Wallhanging. I used my ruler I got at the beginning of the month for the witch hats. I didn't have a pattern for any of it. A lot of it was guessing and when that didn't work just add more fabric around it. I did get the ghost pattern online for free. In the end, I got tired of piecing and started the cross stitch projects. I reminded myself none of this had to be complicated and cut out extra squares of the Halloween fabric to fill in the spots. Most of the fabric is from Joann's and I tried to use some stash fabrics. A few are from my Row by Row winnings this year.

Speaking of winnings I wanted to show you what I got. I took some photos of the fat quarters laid out. I love the colors and variety I am itching to do more with them.

Tea for today is actually from me and my brother hanging out last month. We had stopped at the grocery store and got drinks before starting out and he got a Mango Snapple which he wholeheartedly endorses, and I got a green tea. I love matcha and this is the first unsweetened tea I ever got myself use to drinking. I don't drink my tea unsweetened often. Usually, I do add artificial sweeteners. This one is nostalgic for me to drink. It reminds me of the first time I had sushi.